


How to Open Doors

by Silverheart



Series: Bats and Birds [4]
Category: Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Making Out, early in relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 01:31:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4502640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverheart/pseuds/Silverheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Batgirl teaches the Boy Wonder how to use the remote hacking device (which really isn't that complicated, come on), Batman is (hopefully) inattentive, and some design flaws of the Batgirl suit are discovered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Open Doors

Sometimes, Barbara thought that Bruce’s concept of ‘Genius Level Intellect’ needed some refining.

“It’s not complicated. Just…link it up and figure out the password.”

“Point and shoot I get. The controls are the problem.”

Barb sighed. She’d seen this guy crack murder cases with the ease other people opened soda cans. He could look at an empty bank vault for five minutes and tell you what gang robbed it. Good thing they had a chance to figure this out in training. 

She crouched next to him and took the remote hacking device from him. “Watch.” She began to turn the controls, watching the screen as the readout began to shift from yellow—passive—to green— hacked. Sequences of numbers and letters below made perfect sense to her, information about the link, its progress, and the targeted machine’s output. 

The door in front of them clicked after a moment, dinged by way of congratulations, then reset, changing all its electronic variables. Tim glared at it. Bruce was running this simulation and wouldn’t let them out until Barb was sure Tim understood how to use the gadget. 

Barb was pretty sure that Bruce was doing something else—repairs, or investigating, or eating dinner—while waiting for her to give him the green light to let them out. If he was paying attention to a very boring and nonviolent training session, she’d eat her own cape.

“Here.” She shoved the device into Tim’s hands and helped him sit his fingers on the controls right. She had to give him one thing: she’d designed the device’s fine controls for her hands, which were admittedly smaller. Batman hadn’t had any trouble or complained, but then again he apparently wasn’t bothered by internal bleeding either.

“Look, this is how you tune it to the target.” He was very still and very quiet. She turned and had to lean her head away so she didn’t bash him in the nose. Or…well. “Tim, pay attention.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry.” He inched away a bit. “So it locks on when that dot in the corner shows up?”

“Yes.” 

“Simple enough.”

“You don’t want to know how it does it?”

“When it comes to computers, I’m good when they do what I tell them to.”

She smirked. “Alright, so now it’s tuned. You need to adjust these dials here and here so that you can match the right passcode.”

“Which is indicated by all these letters on the bottom of the screen there?”

“Some of them. Others are—”

“Barb.”

“This line. The color’s an easier way to tell. You can tell how hard it’s going to be to break the encryption by these bars here.”

He nodded. His hands were still on hers, supporting the device. “I have a question.”

“Yes.”

“So I’ve seen yellow and green. What if it turns red?”

“Um, you’ve tripped whatever security systems are in place. Or you’ve set off the bomb.” 

“Okay, then, so red is bad.”

She laughed. “For someone who qualifies as a prodigy, you are simplifying this a lot.”

“Most things are simple, if you look at them right. People just get bogged down in complications and miss how facts connect to each other. So they make the wrong conclusion, or don’t bother to make a conclusion at all.” He manipulated the controls on the device. The door beeped its acknowledgement of his success and reset again. “Oh, come on! Is he even watching?”

“What do you think?”

Tim sighed. “Right. Of course not.” He looked at her and smiled, pale blue eyes sparking in a way that made her heart thunder.

Barb felt herself blush and hoped the cowl hid it. She drew her hands and the device back. “Pretty confident you’ve got it figured out, aren’t you?”

The smile became a full-on toothy Robin grin. “I always figure it out, eventually.”

“Do you, now?”

“Yes.”

Barb looked at the door, then up at the camera. Bruce wasn’t watching. She was pretty sure of that. “Try again,” she said, handing Tim her remote tracker.

He rolled his eyes as he took it and cracked the security system no problem. How had it taken him this long to figure it out? “Well, you’re good to go.” They both looked up at the camera. Nothing. The door had reset and remained closed.

“Maybe if you shout.”

Barb nodded. “Right.” 

She pounced on Tim, instead. 

He flailed a bit as she pinned him against the stubborn stupid door, the device clattering to the floor. 

“Ah, I see now.” Her face was pressed to his neck. She could feel his chest heaving from the adrenaline rush of her sudden strike. Up and down, warm and then warmer. “So can the camera.”

She grinned against his throat, feeling silly—and savage, just a touch. “He’s not paying attention. Found something more interesting.”

Tim nuzzled into her hair. “God, I hope you’re right. I’d never hear the end of it.”

She _bit_ him, where his neck joined at his jaw, just above the line of his suit. He hissed in what wasn’t pain and tugged her even closer. She laughed at herself. “Sorry, just…had to do that.”

“Sure you did.” He pushed her hair aside, lips ghosting over her cheek. Very little of her skin was exposed in her suit, which she’d never minded until now. “I never cared much for the cowl, just so you know.”

“Improvise.” 

“You got it.” 

He kissed her deeply. One hand was buried in her hair, the other held her close. Could you get this close to another person? But then his tongue flicked against hers and she quit wondering. 

Instead, she let her own hands wander along the thin centerline of his armor…

Then the door opened. 

Tim tumbled backwards with a surprisingly high pitched squawk, Barb on top of him. They landed in an undignified tangle of limbs and capes. 

“Practice is over,” Bruce said, “Firefly is torching the warehouse district. The GCFD is taking care of the flames, but we need to stop the source.” There was absolutely no indication in his voice he had seen anything. 

Barb started to stand. Tim flinched. “Ear. Eye,” he said, sitting up.

She chuckled as she got to her feet, then helped him up. One hand drifted to her mouth. She couldn’t help but grin. “Sorry. Design flaw.”

He looked her up and down. “There are some of those. You’ll have to, ah, show me how you deal with them…”

She hit him as she moved to the exit of the training room. “That was an _awful_ line. Come on, we need to go!”

Between the two of them, Firefly didn’t stand a chance, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a word for what you are, Bruce Wayne!


End file.
